Baidu starts mass production of it’s fully autonomous bus
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The faster autonomous vehicles hit the roads the faster the transportation industry’s going to flip, and it’s clear that there are companies that want it to happen sooner rather than later. Chinese tech and internet giant Baidu has begun volume production of China’s first...
Uber reveals six of its favourite flying taxi Skyport concepts
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies become interested, and invest, in flying taxi’s, companies like Airbus and Uber are keen to be at the forefront of the revolution. Stout cylindrical towers that cars can fly inside and stacked landing pods are among the proposals that architects and...
New omniphobic material reduces maritime fuel consumption by upto 80 percent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s ships use huge amounts of energy and fuel to move through the water because of the amount of drag on their hulls, this new coating could reduce fuel use by between 40 and 80 percent. Shipping is one of the most polluting industries...
It’s raining cash, US startup edges closer to creating solid state “Jesus” battery
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Solid state batteries charge faster, , don’t catch fire, last longer and and are cheaper to make than their liquid Lithium Ion cousins, making them a game changer. Recently technology giants like Dyson, Samsung and Total have collectively invested $65 million in Ionic Materials, a company...
Bin your headphones, Noveto streams sound straight into your ears
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Wired headphones get tangled, wireless headphones need charging, so why bother with headphones at all? When Apple introduced the iPhone 7 they removed the headphone jack and spun it as a win for consumers who could now use wireless headphones, obviously preferably Apple branded...
This is the world’s first 3D printed carbon fiber bike
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Carbon fiber’s light weight and superior strength make it idea for many applications, but up until now it’s been expensive and very difficult to work with to create products, that’s all about to change. Modern carbon fibre bikes, stiffer and stronger than their metal...
VW pledges to build a huge supercharger network across the US
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Unless you’d been asleep at the wheel recently you can’t help but notice that it looks like the days of the combustion engine are numbered and that electric vehicles are the future… It’s no secret that Volkswagen wants to sell more electric cars in...
Waymo announces plans to buy 62,000 self-driving cars from Fiat Chrysler
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The self-driving car revolution will arrive earlier than many people expect, because global companies are in an arms race to own the “new” future where cars are provided as a service. It’s evident to anyone who’s been following the progress and roll out of...
General AI, the “holy grail” of AI, demonstrated for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s that can learn quickly, and from very small data sets, will fundamentally change how we train AI’s, their capabilities, and how fast they are deployed into the market. Recently we saw a new “Master algorithm” that could be used to create the first...
Ford CEO gets serious about rolling out self-driving car fleets from 2021
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The arrival of driverless vehicles on our streets won’t rely on consumers buying them, they’ll be provided as a service by companies, as such you can expect their appearance on streets near you to come sooner rather than later. In the race to deploy...
Lamborghini’s futuristic all electric, self healing hyper car won’t have batteries
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It’s likely that our flirtation with battery packs in cars won’t last as long as we think as new wirelessly charged cars start emerging, and as new materials let the cars themselves become the batteries. Lamborghini and MIT recently introduced the Terzo Millennio concept, which...
Mystery car company partners with WiTricity to bring wirelessly charged EV’s to market
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As governments and organisations around the world race to install new plug in electric vehicle charging stations, manufacturers, are already thinking ahead and they’ll be bringing wirelessly charged cars to the market sooner than anyone thinks. A new electric car that uses wireless charging...
Air France KLM and Microsoft use blockchain to improve MRO
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain has enormous potential to improve the efficiency of supply chains and especially MRO, and this is one of the world’s first proof of concepts. Air France KLM’s engineering and maintenance division is evaluating the potential for Blockchain to become its new digital ledger...
Futurist keynote, Reading: Adapt or Die, Cherwell European Conference
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The pace of change, and disruption, is accelerating. In this presentation I show just how fast, and how crazy, the world’s business environment is getting, it’s impact on every sector, and what you can do to future proof yourself. Firstly, I’d like to thank...
Uber’s fatal self-driving car crash reportedly mischaracterised pedestrian as a bag
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Now that cars are more software than hardware bugs in the code, as well as how the software is tuned, will have a big impact on safety, and that’s before cybercriminals start targeting future fleets. Uber has reportedly found that a software problem likely...
UPS bets on blockchain to transform the $1 Trillion shipping industry
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s global supply chains are plagued by a multitude of challenges, both bureaucratic and logistical, blockchain technology used correctly reduces the friction and eliminates many of them. The world is run by trade. Freight and logistics in the US alone account for nearly $1.5...
DP World and Virgin unveil Cargospeed Hyperloop
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The way we transport goods around the planet will change more in the next thirty years than it has in the last two hundred, and this is simply the latest announcement in a long line of transportation modernisation initiatives. DP World has launched Cargospeed,...
Google reportedly mulls investing in a hypersonic tunnelling boring company
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There is a race on to increase the speed of boring tunnels by at least ten fold, and if it can be achieved it will change the economics of energy generation and transportation. Google announced recently, quietly, very quietly, that it’s carrying out research...
MIT and DeepMind’s new AI can’t be tricked with weird lighting
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we produce more systems that rely on machine vision to do their jobs or keep people safe, systems that can’t see the world accurately pose both a danger and a risk. Machine Vision has come a long way since Imagenet, a large repository of labelled...
Blackberry’s AI Robo-hacker gets to work finding bugs in connected cars code
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more products become reliant on software to function, and as programs get increasingly complex, human developers are finding it increasingly difficult to find and patch all the bugs and vulnerabilities. As cars, especially self-driving ones, become more reliant on software it’s critical automakers...
